About a month ago, I posted a widely-circulated video called “Dear JJ Abrams,” created by a Star Wars fan with the help of an ad agency, in which the narrator laid out a series of “rules” to “make Star Wars great again.” The rules included (I’m paraphrasing here):

1. The Setting is the Frontier (because it’s a western)

2. Make it gritty

3. The Force is Mysterious

4. Star Wars isn’t cute

Now, see if you can see any similarities between those rules and the way JJ Abrams describes his approach to Star Wars Episode VII (which he’s now co-writing in addition to directing) in a new interview:

In a recent interview with the UK’s The Times Magazine [subscription only -Ed], director J.J. Abrams hints that Star Wars: Episode VII may return the saga to its gritty, “space western” roots. […]

[Abrams says] he is set on returning the sense of mystery that so pervaded the original trilogy. […] To pull that off, audiences can expect to see a dirtier aesthetic more akin to the frontiers of the Old West than the gleaming futurescapes of the prequels.

“The beauty of [the original film] was that it was an unfamiliar world,” Abrams told The Times, “and yet you wanted to see it expand and to see where it went.” [TheVerge]

God I hope he came to those conclusions on his own and not because he’s been listening to the great sputtering herd of internet dickweeds (I say as a card-carrying dickweed).

“Dear JJ Abrams,” aside from being wildly obnoxious, was a great illustration of the central problem with the fanboy community: they tend to catalog with no ability to synthesize. They can diagram what worked in the past, without an awareness that using it as a blueprint for the future sounds a lot like “GIVE ME WHAT I’VE ALREADY SEEN OR I’LL THROW A FIT! I FEAR THE UNFAMILIAR!”

I’m not saying the rules in Dear JJ Abrams are bad in and of themselves, or that Abrams and co couldn’t make a great movie within those parameters, it’s just that following them could go against the one, ONE ironclad rule of making this or any movie good: make the movie YOU want to see, not the one you think someone else wants to see*.

*George Lucas version of this rule: Keep trying to turn the film into the film you want to see even if you didn’t write or direct it and it’s been finished for 30 years.

I love Firefly as much as the next dickweed, but that is a stupid thing to say.

Joss Whedon is Joss Whedon. JJ Abrams trying to make a Joss Whedon movie would be silly at best. Certainly there are lessons one might learn from Joss. Don’t explain where River’s powers come from, ever (mystery!). No tense stupid hostage situation: just have Mal shoot the guy because he’s an expert marksman and has no time for it (no cheap stupid tension). But no one should try to make a Joss Whedon movie.

I will admit I would’ve liked to see Mel Brooks spoof Joss Whedon once…

If you can’t see the western thing, then you’re not really looking. Sure, it can be compared to various styles, by I think the western plays closest to the truth. I mean, just look at the fact that the goods guys are all white.

1. The setting is the frontier(b/c it’s wild and unexplored like a butt).
2.Make it gritty(Poop is gritty).
3.The force is mysterious(You can’t see who is sexing yr butt b/c they’re behind you; it’s a mystery. Fuck it, have the bad guy be played by Mystery from the Pick-up Artist, and he uses Star Wars themed PUA acronyms).
4. Star Wars isn’t cute.

In conclusion: adjust your expectations to it being a video of Mystery having buttse and also GET OUT YOUR FUCKING CHECKBOOK.

Also, the “JJ” in JJ Abrams are the same initals as Jar-Jar. Coincidence?

I love how it’s become incredibly clear over the years that the actual maker of Star Wars could not more vehemently disagree with those rules for what Star Wars is. The three prequels were one big CGI Jay Cutler at a urinal screaming “DON’T CAREEEEEE” to that guy.

Star Wars was never dark or gritty. FFS you had Jawas shooting R2 and yelping ‘WOOTEEENIIII’ right there in movie one. I was huge into Star Wars before the prequels and while the prequels went super wrong it was not because they were not ‘dark’ or ‘gritty’ enough, it was that they were terribly written.

I think the “gritty” they are talking about is too much of the prequels were carefully polished CGI models and backgrounds. The old one’s felt more “real” because they weren’t in green screen settings, and the vehicles were actual tangible objects with imperfections. At least that’s how I felt about it.

I know the CGI adds a bit of the “polish” to the prequels but the reason for stuff looking clean is to show the difference between the before and after of the Empire taking over.

Which actually doesn’t make sense when you think about it since the OT takes place on Tattooine, Yavin IV (barely seen), Hoth (uninhabited), Dagobah (swamp), Bespin (actually kind of nice looking) and The Forest Moon of Endor. All of those except for the Cloud City of Bespin would have looked that way without the Empire taking over. In fact Tattooine looks the same in the prequels as it does in the OT. The only places that look “good” are Naboo, Corescant and Kamino and they’re not in the OT.

SW wasn’t a western, or a “Space Opera,” or a sci-fi epic, or a Bildungsroman for Skywalker, or, as Indiana Jones was a direct take on, a radio serial, or an allegory about fascists, but a chimera of all of the above. It was simple, swash buckling entertainment. The only rules it need follow is to time warp the fanboys back to being bed wetting 6 year olds so the wonderous awe of the spectacle can effect them the same way now as it did then.
Short if that, you are fucked JJ.

They were pulp era stories. The Buck Rogers movie Lucas wanted to make. The Doc Savage film he and Spielberg could make.

And the “true fans” are so willfully blind they will never get that it was, at heart, passion projects from young filmmakers with nothing to lose. Now they’re old men who’ve donated half a billion dollars to USC alone. George sold his baby to Disney to further his current passion (education) and Disney selected the Corporate Fiction Golden Boy to build a franchise.

It’s Disney. That bought a comic book company and made billions off those comics’ movies by generally ignoring and otherwise telling the 40-year-old man-child fanboys to fuck themselves. Disney sells products to kids, and they do it really fucking well (See my last sentence). I seriously suspect this is misdirection because they can only be so stupid (John Carter) some of the time.

I don’t like Abrams. I think Star Trek was lifeless, boring, and formulaic (Though I do have to give him credit for managing to isolate and insert every single defining characteristic of each crew member as fanservice or whatever and do so relatively seamlessly). But kids love that shit, so who knows? I don’t even like Star Wars.

I just love how a bunch of grown adults (who mostly fashion themselves to be some kind of educated film critics because they have internet access – LOL) assume JJ Abrams is going to “mess up” something as formulaic as Star Wars, by listening to ideas from the fanbase of mostly adults about making things more grounded and gritty – yet also can’t help themsleves from also constantly ripping on how awful the prequels were for being too slick looking, and lighthearted, and geared towards selling toys to kids.

Make up your damn minds. Either you want it to be gritty and grounded, or you want it to be slick and superficial. Anything in the middle is likely going to be bland, compromised and tedious.

Though I guess the truth is, listening to hardcore defenders of Captain Formula himself – Wes Anderson – about anything remotely resembling what constitutes the rules for making an entertaining adventure movie is pure folly. That’s like asking Andrew Lloyd Webber for his opinion on how to drive a in a NASCAR race.

So maybe you hipster nerds should just shut the fuck up and go back to feeling twee about your poetry and your vintage sweater vest collections.

I have to say, the only two worlds that held any sense of “wonder” for me were Tattooine (sp?) and Degobah. One those I wondered about the denizens. The other two original films were an ice planet (seemingly barren) and a forest (too conventional). Yes they wound up having unique wildlife, but I didn’t sit there wondering what they’ll run into next.

The biggest problem I had with the original series was the Ewoks. I never liked them, because the injection of cuteness seemed totally out of place in a story about good, evil, war, redemption; with all that tied up in a family. That was something I disliked before the prequels.

Of course the prequels took this contradiction and went crazy with it. Just like that guy you knew in high school who used to be smart but once he discovered marijuana at the same time everyone else did, he went overboard a didn’t amount to shit. Another fundamental problem of this movie, that people have talked about, is the special effects. These were so stupid, distracting, and out of place in regards to the other films that the previews for EP 1 convinced me not to see it.

I’m not a fanboy, I don’t read sci-fi, or love the movie genre. But the original Star Wars trilogy is special to me. Star Wars transcends the genre which is why it has remained so popular over the years. The prequels would be nearly forgotten by now if they didn’t have the originals to prop them up.

So what the angry nerds are saying is, make it for the original hardcore fans of Star Wars, who are now in their 40s and 50s, who would likely shit on an original 2013 movie similar to the tone, writing, and execution of the original Star Wars. They’d treat it like fucking Iron Sky or Sky Captain.

Look, I loved SW as much as anyone…no, really, probably more than you. But I’m pushing 40. I have a kid. If a new SW comes out I want to be able to take him to see it when he’s three years old–which is when I first saw SW. If you make this “gritty” PG-13 nerd service, you actually AREN’T staying true to SW.

No one likes to hear this, but even though it was terribly scripted and Jar-Jar was a cancer, the closest of the prequels to truly match the tone of the original trilogy was PHANTOM MENACE. And everyone shit on it, and George blinked, and he decided to take it a little darker. So he threw in Boba Fett’s origin, and a battle featuring 100 Jedi, and the beginning of the Clone Wars, and “the bad guys win”, and Yoda with a lightsaber, and I have to believe much of that was to pacify the psychos. What resulted was ATTACK OF THE CLONES, which I firmly hold to be the Absolute Worst SW movie.

I will see these new films. I will probably buy them on Blu-Ray for my kid. But I no longer NEED them, nor do I NEED them to be good to validate my love of the original trilogy. I think some people still do. Listen to Shatner, people.

Middle aged nerds such as myself forget that the original Star Wars trilogy was ostensibly made for kids, and we were kids at the time. Modern day kids laugh at how lame the original Star Wars is and absolutely love, love, love Jar Jar Binks.

The magic is gone and is never coming back. If the new Star Wars turns out half as good as JJ’s Star Trek flicks (not a fan of the original ST, but a fan of movies in general) then I’ll be happy. But I’m not holding my breath.

Vince is right. JJ Abrams should tell the story HE wants to tell and to the best of his abilities. I’d also like to see it filmed on a set that includes more than a green screen and a box. Other than that I’m pretty open to whatever.